What my dogs have taught me about marketing

In 2007, my wife Katy and I adopted Crosby, a three year old walker hound. (At least we’ve been told he’s a walker hound; we really have no way of knowing for sure.) A few years later, we found Ellie at the local humane society and she quickly became Crosby’s younger sister.

As strategic marketers, we’re challenged everyday at studioSavvy with finding unique ways to communicate with our clients’ prospects, current customers, employees and partners. Coming up with the right message, the right voice, and the right vehicle to use. Recently I was working with a client on a new project and it occurred to me that much of what I had to learn about communicating with my dogs is applicable in the marketing world.

Obviously, communicating with people is much more complex than communicating with dogs. I certainly don’t mean to oversimplify what we do day in and day out. But at a core level, starting, building and growing the relationships I have with my dogs is similar to initiating and fostering business relationships through marketing.

Here’s a little of what I mean.

Simple is good. Crosby and Ellie know a few simple commands: No, Sit, Drop, Come, and so on. I’ve learned that if I stick to those, we usually do okay. Where disconnects start is when I become impatient, start using words they don’t know, or simply forget they’re dogs and talk to them like they’re people. “Crosby, get off the damn couch!” has a 0% success rate.

The same is true for crafting marketing messages to people. Too much detail can often water down messages and leave prospects or customers without a clear idea of what they should do next. At studioSavvy, we keep marketing pieces simple and make sure what we’re asking the audience to do—visit a website, make a call, provide feedback—can’t possibly be confused or missed.

Loyalty and trust are earned. As adopt-a-hounds, Ellie and Crosby both had trouble getting used to their new home. Katy and I had to work hard to earn and keep their trust through honesty, leadership and patience.

Building a strong brand is a process. Time, consistency and hard work are keys to growing an army of loyal customers and associates. It’s important we be realistic with goals and expectations and set reasonable benchmarks that we can use to measure progress regularly.

Be consistent. Over time, Crosby and Ellie have learned to follow a pretty good routine. Get up in the morning, go for a long walk, eat breakfast while Katy and I get ready for work, go out to relieve themselves, hang out at the house until we get home from work, long walk #2, have dinner, cuddle, go to bed. When we follow that plan, all is okay. But skip that morning walk or try to shortchange evening cuddle time and they’re thrown completely out of whack.

Crafting strong brand and marketing messages is no different in that consistency is key.  Just as it took time for my dogs to learn their routine, it can take audiences time to become true believers in a brand. This certainly doesn’t mean we have to use the same words or images in every message we create, but finding ways to connect everything back to the overall brand is critical to shortening the learning curve.

Be proactive. Crosby has several quirky personality traits, but none quite as quirky as his violent fear of bicycles. We don’t know where the fear stems from, only that it seems to be completely incurable and leads to extremely embarrassing moments when we’re out and about. We’ve had to learn to live with it and now, every time we see a bike we immediately stop, ask Crosby to sit, and do our best to keep his attention on us until the bike passes.

As we build strategic marketing plans, we try to be proactive with our messages. It’s important to look ahead and get out in front of opportunities, cyclical shifts in the market and potential questions from audiences. At the same time, it’s important for us to be flexible and able to move quickly if appropriate.

Know your audiences’ motivators. When I want to teach Ellie something new (how to shake, lie down, drop a piece of roadkill she picks up on the street, whatever), I know that I can motivate her through food. If she does what I ask, she gets a treat. When she fails, no treat. Sticking with this simple process has proven to be a great way to help her learn. Crosby could care less about food. It took a while to figure this out, but he’s motivated by hunting. When he needs to learn something new, I have to figure out ways to incorporate a hunting-like challenge into the task for him to overcome. Two completely different ways of motivating my dogs to ultimately master the same task.

Audiences we communicate with are no different. Internal audiences will likely need to be motivated differently than external ones. While one segment may be motivated to act by special offers, others may be motivated by the promise of an exceptional customer service experience. The trick is to figure out what their individual hot-buttons are and push them.

So to quickly sum up, in no way am I suggesting that you think of your audiences as dogs. (Doing so would probably take you in the opposite direction of where we want you to go. Quickly.) What I am suggesting is that it’s important to keep these core marketing points in mind as you’re segmenting audiences and developing your strategic marketing plan.

We’d love to talk with you more about these ideas. And if you’ve learned anything from your pets that you can relate back to your challenges as a marketer, drop us a line. If we get enough, it would be great fun for us to compile and share them with everyone.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,
Hunter

Getting the most out of your interactive campaign

Six months ago, we began working on an interactive campaign with StyleCraft Homes, one of our client partners. Our responsibilities included developing the creative and overseeing production as well as planning out the media strategy and securing placement. While I think we did a lot right with the campaign, we have also learned quite a bit and are continuing to make adjustments to improve performance.

The campaign is still running, but I thought that at this six month mark, it would be worth reflecting back on a few takeaways to date. Following are several that have risen to the top.

Interactive allows interaction. Take advantage of that. As a marketing tool, the web offers advertisers the ability to engage audiences through movement, sound, and interaction. Our media strategy includes placement over a number of sites, some that accept Flash banners and some that don’t. Across the board, the Flash banners which incorporate user-initiated movement and video are pulling higher click-through rates than the static banners.

Interactive-heavy vs. Interactive-exclusive. The campaign kicked off with an interactive push across several targeted sites. We saw decent response and a slight uptick in website traffic linked back to the banners. As the campaign has progressed, we’ve layered in print, radio, social media and paid search and we’re continuing to see improvement in website traffic, as well as a strong increase in unique visitors.

Interactive allows adjustment. So adjust. Results from interactive campaigns can be monitored in as close to real time as you can get in advertising. It’s possible to evaluate creative performance down to the version (size, message, etc) and site it’s running on. Take advantage of this. Make smart decisions about what will pull best against your campaign goals and adjust accordingly.

Deliver on your promise. Rather than simply driving people to a homepage, consider creating a specific landing page or microsite for the campaign that quickly gives the user what they expect to see. Whether they’re clicking through for information, entertainment or because the banner promises something unexpected, eliminating the “hunt and peck” from their experience will help keep them engaged with your site.

Simplicity works. We had numerous creative executions within our campaign and a clear trend has emerged through our reporting—the versions that grabbed the users attention quickly and were most direct returned the highest click-through rates. Recognizing this allows us to adjust the creative rotation throughout the schedule and optimize impressions with the strongest performing banners.

Consistency pays. Interactive strategies are no different than any other strategies in that they need time to build momentum and produce results. Be proud of your brand and your execution, and give your messages the time and frequency they need to perform.

Know how to find your audience. The internet is a big place and lots of people play there every day. Most of them are NOT your target audience. Its important to know where and how your specific target audience is spending time online—and what content they’re interacting with when you’re messages will be relevant to them.

Over the next six months, we will continue to monitor the tracking and measurement metrics we have in place, and continue to fine tune the StyleCraft Homes campaign. If we can be diligent about sticking to the guidelines above, I expect we’ll continue to see consistent improvement in our results. Who knows, maybe we’ll gain enough new learnings in the next few months for a follow-up post…

-Hunter

How to use the iPad like a designer.

Magical, revolutionary—sure. But, practical? This wasn’t at all what I was expecting. Since I picked up my iPad on that glorious Saturday morning in April, I’ve been amazed by how much more productive I’ve become. In case you are on the fence about whether or not it’s worth the investment, here are some of the applications and add-ons I’ve been using to help me as a designer. Also, being that I’d much rather spend my iTunes money on, well, tunes, all of these apps are budget-friendly and well worth their sticker price.

1. Adobe Ideas Free!: Gives you the ability to create color palettes based off of images and photographs, and then sketch over or independently of these images in a vector format. Email the file to yourself and it opens in Illustrator. Fantastic for sketching ideas, doodling notes, or concepting logos.
   
2. Penultimate $2.99: Works great with my nifty pink stylus (found here) for when I have random project ideas to write or sketch about. The best thing about this app is that you can keep multiple notebooks for different topics, and email the entire book to yourself as a PDF.
   
3. Wordpress Free!: Update your blog as though you’re writing an email. Super simple. Great for impulse posts (like this one).
   
4. InstapaperPro $4.99: Great for catching up on all those design-related articles you’ve passed over on twitter, facebook, etc. Plus the interface is really clean, easy to read, and uses nice typography.
   
5. Sorted $0.99: Because every great designer loves lists! And every Type-A graphic designer loves to be able to prioritize, color code, and sort their lists.
   
6. Pages $9.99: This pretty powerful little word processing app looks just as great on the ipad as it does on the desktop. Perfect for updating proposals, collateral content, or for when notes on the iPhone just doesn’t cut it.
   
7. Camera Bag $2.99: In conjunction with the iPad Camera Connection Kit, I use this app to crop, frame, and color edit photos—hours of fun!
   
8. Filter Storm $1.99: Great for quick photoshop-esque work. Color adjustments, lighting, noise reduction, and brushes can help fix up photos on the go.
   
9. Drop Box Free!: Share files with your desktop/laptop/iPad. I keep an inspiration folder for ideas and in-process projects so I can refer to them at all times.
   
10. Moodboard Pro $4.99: This is my latest addition, which might also be my most favorite. Create boards of images, photos, text, web clips, color palettes (which can be sampled from imported photos or web clips), all in one spot. Great for project ideas and brainstorming. Email final product or save as an image and post directly to twitter/facebook.
    

Bonus Apps: Not super “productive” but definitely fun!

1. Art Puzzle HD $1.99: Maneuver through galleries of paintings and solve puzzles as you go. Great for brushing up on those art history courses. Or for killing time.
   
2. PegLight Free!: It’s like a LiteBrite, but without having to organize the pegs by color when you’re finished.
   
3. Granimator Free!: Really random and slightly annoying app that allows you to create artwork based on 6 different theme packs. I prefer the 1980s graffiti option, personally. Also, while you place and edit images it makes really weird little noises, which is great for irritating business partners.
   

}Carrie, designerd.

We miss paper. :(

Over the last several years, there has been a well-documented increasing shift from print to the internet. This isn’t a surprise or an OMG statement—new articles and survey results are released every day showing the widening gap between the internet and every other medium. It makes sense. The web provides an affordable way to reach specific audiences with targeted, time-sensitive messages, facilitate two-way conversation, build throngs of engaged fans, and track ROI like nothing else can.

This trend has certainly manifested itself in our business at studioSavvy. Since opening in 2006, our workload has changed significantly. Our first partnerships were, for the most part, clients who needed help with printed pieces: collateral, publications, identity systems, etc. In 2010, we are doing more web and interactive work than we ever have before. Websites, banner ads, social media programs, eNewsletters, etc. It has been an exciting shift for us as the web offers our clients opportunities to integrate their messages and interact with their consumers in ways that even three years ago would have been impossible.

But here’s the thing: We miss working with paper.

There’s something special—something romantic—about putting ink to paper. About starting with a blank canvas and creating a tangible piece of art that literally demands attention and forces someone to pick it up and look at it. About creating a piece that relies not only on design and copy, but on texture, weight and shape to carry its message. Here’s just a small sampling of what we love about print:

The feel: Print is one of the few marketing mediums that can actually be picked up, touched, rubbed and folded, meaning we can use the actual material and method of printing to further enhance the message. Technology in paper and printing continues to evolve, and options these days for using ink on different types of materials is nearly endless.
The control: The production quality of printed materials is very controllable. Through a series of proofs and press checks, we can ensure that color is reproducing appropriately, and that it is consistent with the brand, with other campaign materials, and with expectations.
The flexibility: With different papers, types of ink, printing and binding methods and delivery options, the possibilities are endless, allowing your piece to be truly unique.
The smell: This may sound odd, but there is just something about the smell of a piece hot off the printer that, well, we’ve become quite fond of over the years.

We’re  not suggesting that we do away with the web, or with any other medium for that matter. We love the interactive work we’re doing with our clients and their campaigns could not have achieved the successes they have without it. What we are suggesting is that we don’t forget about the power that well-designed, well-produced printed communications can have, and that they are worth at least considering as part of almost any complete communications strategy.